Les mottes sont des pistolets chargeis--words are loaded pistols. Jean Paul Sarte.
The assassination of Charlie Kirk and two failed attempts on President Trump’s life have drawn renewed attention to a disturbing and complex phenomenon: stochastic terrorism—when inflammatory rhetoric increases the probability of violence by radicalized individuals. In recent years, prominent figures on the right have been repeatedly labeled as “Nazis,” “racists,” and “existential threats.” Such language may not directly incite violence, but it creates a climate where violence becomes more likely.
The concept goes back a long way. King Henry II’s lament, “Will no one rid me of this turbulent priest?” was interpreted by knights as a command leading to the murder of Archbishop Thomas Becket. More recently, Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin was vilified for months before the heated rhetoric made him a target. “I did not commit the act to stop the peace process, because there is no such thing. It is a process of war and the murder, was my obligation according to religious law,” said Yiga Amir, Rabin’s assassin. The 2011 Norway attacks and the 2019 Christchurch shootings have been interpreted by some as the result of online radicalization where rhetoric fosters mass violence.
Stochastic terrorism is not a legal term and has no exact meaning in law. It is a fairly recent concept bandied about that can affect how we deal with hate speech, random political violence, and the First Amendment. In other areas stochastic events involve random variables such as the decay of radioactive atoms, the movement of gas particles and flipping coins where the outcomes can’t be predicted with certainty but do follow a probability distribution. It is a probabilistic result as versus a deterministic action which always produces the same result.
In the political realm stochastic terrorism is the public demonization of a person or group by an influential figure or group of leaders and influencers, using inflammatory rhetoric that is indirectly, vaguely, or code phrased which may statistically lead to acts of violence by unpredictable “lone wolf” individuals such as Charlie Kirk’s assassin. Speakers remain legally protected by plausible deniability, even as their amplified rhetoric creates a climate of fear and increases the likelihood of violence. Modern communication platforms amplify their “loaded pistol” words.
A historical example of indirect encouragement of violence is Henry II’s lament. It wasn’t a direct order to kill Becket and thus was plausibly deniable. Similarly, an influential speaker today can use biased, hostile, or dehumanizing language about an individual, political, social or ethnic group and has a legal loophole if some random individual then assassinates someone--the First Amendment says speech is protected unless there is direct incitement to imminent lawless action.
Hate speech is the vernacular of stochastic terrorism. There is no single definition but the UN defines it as any communication, including speech, writing, or video that targets individuals or groups based on who the are.
Examples would include racial slurs, dehumanizing language and misinformation that can lead to discrimination, violence and stigmatization.
It focuses on an individual or group based on their identity not their actions.
It uses language intended to humiliate, degrade and promote prejudice against the targeted group. It spreads false information. Hate speech has preceded large-scale atrocities including genocide.
Some countries such as the UK and Germany (Volksverhetzung’s incitement to hatred) have statutes against hate speech. Scotland’s recent Hate Crime and Public Order Act has caused a ferocious debate across social sites, medical circles, legal chambers, police stations and political circles as it expanded hate crime protections to transgender identity. Critics say it stifles free speech, set back hard-won women’s rights and is unclear in its directives.
The United States has wisely decided not to go the hate speech route and to protect free speech, regardless of how hateful. As the Supreme Court has said, “one man’s vulgarity is another’s lyric.” Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes wrote that the First Amendment is a broad guarantee “of “freedom for the thought we hate.” As a Republican I can attest that my party being called Nazis and followers of Hitler feels pretty hateful but the answer is not to make it a crime to say that.
Another storied Justice, Louis Brandeis, thought that prohibiting “evil counsels” would actually backfire, “. . .the path to safety lies in the opportunity to discuss freely supposed grievances and proposed remedies, and the fitting remedy for evil counsels is good ones.”
Washington Post columnist Jonathan Rauch wrote back in 2014, “The problem for proponents of hate-speech laws and codes is that they can never explain where to draw a stable and consistent line between hate speech and vigorous criticism, or who exactly can be trusted to draw it. The reason is that there is no such line.”
The Supreme Court does allow limited restrictions on free or hate speech under Brandenburg v. Ohio but they are narrow, Speech that is intended to produce “imminent lawless action and is likely to do so” is not protected. This harkens back to the well-known First Amendment exception that one “can’t yell fire in a crowded theater” as the harm would be imminent. The words must be likely to produce violence or lawlessness right away.
Recently, Attorney General Pam Bondi said on a podcast that federal law enforcement would target anyone for hate speech. She quickly amended this statement after bipartisan criticism. Conservatives have spent years defending free speech against the left’s attempt to label anything it didn’t like as “hate speech” to silence it. She quickly went on X to clarify her remarks, “Hate speech that crosses the line into threats of violence in NOT protected First Amendment. It is a crime.” I would add it meets the exception only if it meets the imminent and likely standard.
The concept of stochastic terrorism is useful in pointing out the cumulative effect of words especially in viral on-line media. Many times these words are very hateful. So what do we do when people say false and disgusting things about Charlie Kirk who was the leading advocate for young people’s free speech?
First, the principle of free speech is a big thing. Situational ethics is the domain of the left. The First Amendment protects against government restrictions on free speech but private citizens, school boards and companies can set employment standards and fire a teacher who goes on-line and says, “One Nazi down” or decide they won’t broadcast a comedian who says false and demeaning things about a young man who was just murdered. The teacher and Jimmy Kimmel should at a minimum be shunned.
Conservatives can work harder to dispel the narratives that are false. I have searched the internet rigorously to try to find the racist and fascist things that Charlie Kirk supposedly said. The closest I can find to accurate quotes is an article in the Guardian (Chris Stine, 9/11/2025). Kirk’s quotes show he was against affirmative action, for a strong border, believed in a traditional sense of marriage, and was strongly pro-life and anti-abortion. He was roundly criticized in the liberal press for saying that if his daughter as a minor got pregnant he would not want her to have an abortion but to go ahead and have the child. You can disagree with his positions but labeling him a racist or misogynist is opinion.
There are those who want to use AI to help prevent stochastic terror and hate speech. Others point out the potentially significant problems with this in the areas of due process, justification, and bias in the AI algorithms. Some recommend a public health model with programs to help communities resist radicalization instead of government fiat.
Rather than passing ex post facto restrictions on speech we should try to modify the persuasive force of internet cues to violence with counter argument. I recently wrote an op-ed in which I call for more civil political discourse. Language does matter. Civil language can foster understanding but heated abusive rhetoric can be a loaded pistol as French philosopher and political activist Jean Paul Sarte warned.
Greg Ganske, MD, Member of Congress (ret), is a retired plastic surgeon who cared for women with breast cancer, children with birth defect, farmers with hand injuries, trauma and burn victims. He served Iowa in the U.S. Congress from 1995-2003.
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